Tag: paper mario

Paper Mario: The Origami King

There are blatant improvements to the story, but the development of the script feels undercooked at several points; there is a lot of great design to be found in the exploration of the overworld, but there is an unnecessary simplicity restricting what Mario can do; and there may even be value to be extracted out of its puzzle-based battle system, but combats are so straightforward, easy, and pointless that it feels like they are there more as an obligation than as an actual creative decision. The result is an enjoyable, charming, and funny adventure game whose remaining RPG gameplay comes off as empty and unnecessary, and stuck in this uncomfortable position of not fully committing to any of the facets that it tries to embrace, The Origami King could have never matched the golden days of the franchise. However, for what it is worth, the game is the saga’s best entry to be released ever since it began to move away from its glorious and distant start.

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by Matt

Super Paper Mario

Through those various problems, however, Super Paper Mario still stands relatively well. The decision to dilute the RPG elements of its predecessors and bet on the action and puzzle-solving components of the saga does make sense when the context in which the game was inserted is taken into account. Nevertheless, its quest, the general dullness of its combat, and the varied but ultimately overly straightforward nature of its puzzles reveal the process of simplification may have gone too far. Super Paper Mario, therefore, is able to find a way to work as a game not thanks to the excellence of its gameplay, but because the charm of its world and the competence of its mechanics are accompanied by a very well-written plot and individual chapters that shine quite brightly. As such, even if in the end it is just its script and characters that will truly leave a mark and be remembered by those who go through the adventure, the title is worth playing thanks to its uniqueness and its powerful heart.

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by Matt

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door

With minor improvements, and powered by a wheel of creativity that puts Mario in a series of situations that are absurd, engaging, and intriguing, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is not only one of the GameCube’s finest titles, but also one of Mario’s best adventures. It is a playable storybook that reveals outstanding characters, sharp writing, and fantastic humor with every page that is turned, and complements those elements with a great battle system and smart level design. It takes advantage of the fact it stands on ground that was firmly prepared by its predecessor, and uses it to fly towards an incredible set of ideas whose coexistence in the same tight package is the proof that lighting can indeed be captured by a bottle.

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by Matt

Paper Mario

By its curtain call, Paper Mario will have proved itself to be an improvement over its predecessor; certainly not an affirmation to be taken lightly given the classic status of Super Mario RPG. Supported by three strong pillars of unquestionable quality – its creative writing, its engaging exploration, and its simple yet deep RPG elements and battle system – the game shows that Nintendo and Intelligent Systems used the knowledge acquired from their partnership with Squaresoft to build a work that is utterly original, from its visuals to its gameplay, and that is not afraid to abandon the more traditional approach of Super Mario RPG for something that feels fresher and even more aligned with the aura of the Mario franchise. Legends are not easy to topple, but Paper Mario does it.

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by Matt

Paper Mario: Color Splash

Where Sticker Star was the downfall, Color Splash is the fair shot at redemption: a game that tries to reconnect itself with what its prequel lost. However, it is visible its heart is not quite fully dedicated to that honorable quest. While it does, to an astounding degree, recover the spectacular funny writing over which the glory of Mario’s role-playing outings is constructed, it holds onto failed ideas that were introduced by Sticker Star and that ended up receiving the universal panning they deserved. Therefore, Color Splash is frustratingly ambivalent, as it shows Nintendo working at the peak of its creative powers, and at the lowest depths of its unshakable stubborn nature.

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by Matt

Rainbows And Dark Clouds

If it were taken to court and placed on the defendant’s seat, Color Splash would not be able to summon a single alibi to escape the accusation of carrying those features: the verdict would be quick, and the game would be sent to the prison where all offenders of good game design rot for all eternity. However, differently from Sticker Star, an endless lifeless slog in the form of a game, Color Splash is actually fun. Undoubtedly, it does have its share of annoying vices – for example, specific Thing Cards are still a must to make boss battles manageable and to help Mario clear certain obstacles. Nonetheless, in the fixing, or in the minimal shifts in implementation, of many of Sticker Star’s dull mechanics, it finds a way to be successful and entertaining.

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by Matt

Give the People What They Want

The path to the restoration, or to the maintenance, of a franchise is often not the one fans expect companies to take. In other words, it is possible that Nintendo has learned, through a negative experience, what the limits of the Paper Mario franchise are, and that Color Splash is an honest attempt to successfully integrate some failed elements of Sticker Star into the saga without bringing it down and leaving it devoid of personality. Or, of course, it could be the good old and stubborn Big N trying to prove, against all odds and feedback, that some of their obviously misguided ideas can actually work. The best one can do for now is hope that by not giving the people what they want, Nintendo will happen to actually give us what we have wanted all along.

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by Matt

Jammed Creativity

Paper Jam shuns that structure, a worthy move considering it had already been used three times, and opts to simply make Paper Mario tag along Mario and Luigi. His addition, and that of paper characters and enemies running around the kingdom, does affect gameplay to some degree, especially in battles. However, other than that, standing close to the game’s halfway point, Paper Jam has yet to truly pull off something remarkable and inventive out of that combination. Instead of feeling like a crash worthy of the hadron collider, Paper Jam ha – so far – come off as something that was quickly stitched up together without much thought.

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by Matt

When The Same Is Different

Nevertheless, regardless of the process, those are titles that show Nintendo’s failure to deliver a stream of new franchises is, to say the least, very deceiving. The company is constantly pulling off concepts of great originality, but often employing them as creative means to present their well-known characters in never-seen-before ways.

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by Matt

E3 2015 Predictions: Dream A Dream Edition

Dreams are a powerful thing, but they can also be incredibly painful. At the gates of every E3, the mind of every Nintendo fan is bursting with wild hopes of seeing a far-fetched and highly desired game materialize. Sometimes, it is an important franchise that has been gone for long and whose resurrection seems unlikely; and on other occasions it simply is a project that would make a lot of sense with the hardware the company currently holds. Regardless of what makes them a nearly impossible dream, the announcement of any of the following titles would make a lot of folks happy.

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by Matt